Helen Slavin was born in Heywood in Lancashire in 1966. She was raised by eccentric parents on a diet of Laurel and Hardy, William Shakespeare and the Blackpool Illuminations. Educated at her local comp her favourite subjects at school were English and Going Home. After The University of Warwick she worked in many jobs including, plant and access hire, a local government Education department typing pool, and a vasectomy clinic. A job as a television scriptwriter gave her the opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, living in a made-up fantasy world and getting paid for it (sometimes). Helen has been a professional writer for fifteen years. Her first novel The Extra Large Medium was chosen as the winner in the Long Barn Books competition run by Susan Hill. A paragliding Welsh husband and two children distract her and give her ample opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, nagging about homework and washing pants for England. In the wee small hours she still keeps a bijou flat in that fantasy world of writing. When not working with animals and striving for world peace, Helen enjoys the music of Elbow and baking bread. Her favourite colour is purple and if she had to be stranded on a desert island with someone it would be Ray Mears (alright, George Clooney is very good looking but can he make fire with a stick? No. See?). She now lives, with her family, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, where, when she’s not writing, she’s asleep. Or in Tescos. ‘….Ultimately, Slavin has something more subversive up her sleeve than mere entertainment: in conjuring a world of ghosts… she wickedly skewers a society whose obsession with the afterlife shortchanges life itself.’ — The New York Times If you’d like to try Helen Slavin’s work for free, subscribe to her Book Club and get a free Witch Ways Whisper as an introduction.